Conflict is a part of the classroom experience. Students constantly disagree with each other and with the teacher. No matter what a teacher does, there will always be someone upset or disappointed about what has happened. As such, this post will look at several strategies to reduce and prevent conflict in the classroom.

Rules & Routines

Nothing can prevent conflict and disagreements like clear rules and procedures. Rules help students to know what they are supposed to do and when. When rules are established, expectations for behavior are also in place.

Routines are similar to rules and maybe the same. The purpose of routines is to guy students during specific moments in the classroom. Examples can include coming in from the playground or putting materials away at the end of a period. Whereas a rule applies at all times (i.e., be respectful), routines apply in certain circumstances.

However, the strength of rules or routines is limited by the enforcement of them. Many classrooms and teachers have reasonable if not excellent rules but do not consistently enforce them. It is a disaster to apply rules part-time. Students will see the inconsistency and will become eager to test whether or not they can get away with something, which leads to conflict.

Limiting Interaction

Conflict happens when students interact. Therefore, another way to limit conflict would be to limit interaction. Used intermittingly, limiting interaction can be beneficial, especially as a deterrent to poor behavior. If students know that conflict leads to no more interaction, it may motivate them to monitor their behavior.

The key again is consistency. Consistent behavior from the teacher leads to consistent behavior from the students. If limiting interaction is an appealing strategy for you, it must be used predictably based on the students’ behavior.

Avoid Win-Loss Scenarios

When there is a conflict between students, there are times when one student gets all that they want while another student gets nothing. This is an example of a win-loss situation. When such cases occur, it leads to hostility between the losing student towards the winning student and all kinds of accusations against the teacher who chose one side over the other. For example, if two students are fighting over a ball and the teacher sides with one. The other student will be upset, which will lead to future conflict.

Of course, there are times when this is appropriate, but if it’s possible, a teacher should try and make sure that both sides give and take in a disagreement. There are even times when both sides should lose. For example, if students are fighting over a ball, the teacher may choose to take the ball away, which leads to everyone losing. Being “mean” to everyone is perceived as fair, even if students do not like it.

Conclusion

Teachers must develop ways to help students through conflict as well as to learn how to avoid it. The strategies presented here provide some ways to work for some teachers who are facing challenges with conflict.

As people generally dislike conflict, it would make sense that leaders use some familiar strategies to avoid conflict. Below are several strategies leaders use to avoid conflict.

Administrative Orbiting

Administrative orbiting involves a leader looking like they are doing something when in reality, nothing has happened. For example, a teacher goes to the principal with a problem. The principal acknowledges the problem and communicates to the teacher that they will look into it. When the teacher returns for a status report, the principal stalls by saying, “we are still looking at this” or “these things take time.” The reality is that the administrator isn’t going to do anything and is just presenting an air of action.

This is naturally frustrating, but it is hard to prove that the leader hasn’t done anything. Who wants to call their supervisor a “do nothing liar.” Administrative orbiting is a brilliant strategy for dealing with a problem without dealing with the situation.

Due Process Orbiting

Similar to administrative orbiting is due process orbiting. In this approach, it is not the administrator who is not doing anything. Instead, the petitioner is kept busy with an endless assault of rules and regulations they have to go through to get a problem addressed. This approach aims to exhaust the complaining teacher to get them to give up their conflict or problem.

This approach gives the appearance of transparency and conflict resolution by creating a bureaucratic nightmare. The brilliance involves keeping the complainer busy while doing nothing until they tire. However, if the complainer is persistent enough, it raises the stakes for the administrator to do something when the process is completed. This is because now there is documentation that the teacher cooperated with the process, but their problem was not addressed.

Non-action

Non-action, as its name implies, means doing nothing to address a problem. The leader assumes that if they ignore a conflict or problem that it will go away. There are times where the cure is worst than the disease. However, ignoring a conflict can also lead to it growing larger and becoming a significant distraction.

Non-action can be helpful if experience shows when to use it. The problem is that it is hard to tell when to use this strategy. There are times when people need to work things out themselves and when the leader needs to intervene.

Character Assassination

Character assassination involves acting the person who is complaining. For example, a teacher complains about a serious safety concern on-campus. The administration labels this person a “troublemaker” or someone who is not a “team player.” This ostracizes the teacher from others and can set the stage for eventually turning the school against them.

If this happens, the teacher may be quiet, or they may quit. Either of these works for the administrator, but the conflict was never really resolved. Instead, it was silenced through psychological means. Naturally, all this is happening discretely through rumors and gossip, which is distressing for most people.

Secrecy

Secrecy is related to character assassination while also be a different strategy. The purpose behind secrecy is to complete controversial actions without others knowing. Doing this minimizes resistance and supposedly reduces conflict. However, when people finally find out what is going on, they are generally more upset because of the secretive nature.

Whenever administrators move secretly, they run the risk of losing the trust of their teachers. Any action that must be done secretly is probably a poor decision. If you can’t tell the people under you what you are doing, why should they be open with you? This can lead to a passive-aggressive climate in which everyone is moving around in the darkness.

Conclusion

Conflict avoidance is something we all desire. However, when this is taken to an extreme, it only delays the inevitable. Leaders must develop the courage to address conflict because people will respect this even if they do not like the conflict results. Using the strategies above will cause people to lose faith in the system and respect for the leader.

Conflict is a reality that few people enjoy. Whether we like it or not, students often disagree and challenge each other and even the teacher at times. In this pos4t, we will look at conflict types and levels of conflict.

Affective Conflict

Affective conflict is emotional conflict. In other words, there is an emotional incompatibility between two individuals or groups of people. Students are notorious for hurting each other’s feelings leading the teacher to sort out the problem. When affective conflict takes, there is often a general lack of getting along among the parties involved.

A student’s emotional state can be unpredictable. As such, avoiding affective conflict can be tricky at times for students and teachers. What is does cause harm one day can lead to a severe outburst the next. Many people want to be sensitive, but the line of sensitivity can be hard to determine at times.

Cognitive Conflict

Cognitive conflict involves a significant difference of opinions. When people argue about the best way to do something or ideas, it often involves cognitive conflict. Many conflicts can begin cognitively but quickly devolved into affective conflict. Generally, cognitive conflict is not as common as people often rely more on their emotions than their intellectual capacities when in conflict. Evidence of this is how people substitute “I feel” with “I think.” For many people, these two phrases mean the same thing.

Behavioral Conflict

Conflict can also occur because of the actions of a person or group that offends another. When the behavior of one person or group offends the other, it is an example of behavioral conflict. A student talking in class could lead to behavioral conflict with the teacher, for instance. Like affective conflict, behavioral conflict can be tricky because people can be unpredictable in terms of acceptable behavior.

Goal Conflict

Group desiring different outcomes can come to a significant disagreement. Goal conflict happens when people are fighting over achieving different goals. A classic example is watching any sports game. It is generally not possible for both sides to when the game.

All of these different forms of conflict can be interrelated. For example, a student is talking in class, which leads to behavioral conflict with the teacher. During the behavioral conflict, the teacher or student may become angry, which is affective conflict. To further confuse things, goal conflict can be happening because the teacher wants the talking to stop while the student wants to keep going. Lastly, cognitive conflict can occur because the teacher thinks it is wrong for the student to be talking while the student doesn’t see anything wrong with it.

Therefore, it may be wisest not to focus so much on the type of conflict but instead focus on defusing the conflict.

Scope of the Conflict

Conflict can happen at several levels. Interpersonal conflict is conflict within an individual. An example of this is a student struggling to decide or do the right thing. This internal struggle is a form of intrapersonal conflict.

Interpersonal and intergroup conflict is conflict between individuals and groups. Lastly, inter-organizational conflict is conflict between organizations. Each of these forms of conflict can involve complex alliances and negotiation. For example, two students in the same group or school who generally hate each other may work together if an outsider offends the group. This is similar to the proverb, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” For the sake of the group, these two enemies will unite temporarily because of the outside threat.

Conclusion

Conflict is part of life. Students need to be aware that conflict is something they will always have to deal with. Teachers need to understand the forms and levels of conflict to help students learn from the battles they face when dealing with each other.

Power, authority, and leadership are terms that are used frequently. In this post, we will look at these three terms in the context of the classroom.

Power

Power is the ability to get something done despite resistance. In other words, a powerful person can get what they want. The assumption in education is that the teacher is the primary source of power in the classroom. However, a powerful person may not necessarily be in a leadership position. For example, a problematic student can be extremely powerful through disrupting class. Their behavior can grind instruction to a halt while the teacher looks for ways to remove the distraction.

There are several forms of power that a teacher or even a student can tap into in the classroom. Coercive power is the ability to make someone comply with orders. Such as when a parent makes a child do something they do not want to do. Normative power is a form of power that implies that the people in the organization or classroom should act a certain way. An example of this would be peer pressure which can get even adults to do crazy things.

Utilitarian power is a form of give and take. In other words, a student might cooperate to gain or avoid losing a privilege. These forms of power are derived from a teacher’s expertise, ability to reward, and there role as a teacher. What this means is that if a teacher knows their material, it can be a source of power. If Teachers can grant or take away, privileges students will notice this as well. Lastly, the position of the teacher ensures that whoever is the teacher will by their title have a specific power in the classroom.

Students can also tap into some of these forms of power. FOr example, athletic students have shown expert power in sports which is often an appreciated skill in school. Older students often have a form of legitimate power due in part to their age and, in some cases, size.

Authority

Authority is the context in which power can be exercised. For example, a teacher has the authority, or permission, to tell a student what to do. However, it is a rare situation in which a teacher can tell an administrator what to do. The same applies to students. Generally, students lack authority. Yet, there are situations in which a teacher will obey a student, such as when they are having problems with technology or their cellphone.

A common mistake teachers and students have is understanding the boundaries of their authority. There are times when a teacher has the right to exercise power, times when they can exercise power and shouldn’t, and times when they cannot exercise power. For example, teachers have the authority to give out assignments and homework. However, generally, a teacher has the authority but probably should not fail all the students on a given assignment because it indicates that the students were not adequately prepared for the assessment.

In addition, teachers have less authority over students who are not directly in their classes. As such, when one of these students is disruptive, the teacher should typically communicate with the disruptive student’s teacher. Crossing disciplinary lines like this can become confusing due to the lack of a prior relationship with the problem student.

Leadership

One definition of leadership is the ability to get others to do things willingly. Leadership is more of a measure of a teacher’s soft skills when compared to power or authority. When students are choosing to cooperate because they want to, this is an example of leadership. When a student stops misbehaving of their own volition, this is another example of leadership.

Leadership is another tool along with power and authority that can mix to make each teacher’s unique approach to classroom management. It is impractical to say that power and authority are not acceptable tools for student compliance. The only mistake a teacher can make is to use any single approach exclusively. A one-tool teacher is always going to alienate students who do not respond well to the only tool the teacher has. Some students need coercion, while others need inspiration. A good teacher identifies the needs of the students and makes adjustments appropriately. This is yet another form of leadership.

Conclusion

This post look at power, authority, and leadership in the classroom. Each of these are practical ways to work with students. It is also important to realize that all of these tools work together to help students succeed in the classroom.

Classroom leadership can take one of many forms. Here we will look at several different leadership styles. The purpose is not to determine which is best but rather to suggest when it might be better to use one over another. Looking at these leadership styles may help teachers see what their preferred or natural leadership style is.

Tannenbaum and Schimdt

In the 1950s, researchers by the name of Tannenbaum and Schmidt created what they called a continuum of leadership styles. For them, leadership was a combination of one of the three below.

• autocratic-Leader centered dictatorial style
• participative-Workers are involved and consulted about decision-making
• free-rein-Work is assigned, and the workers determine how to complete it

The three examples above are a part of a continuum that means that a leader can be somewhere between these categories in what could be considered a gray area.

In the classroom, depending on the context, any of these styles of leadership may be appropriate. Younger students may need more of an autocratic leadership style, while it may be appropriate to have more of a participative style of leadership for students such as high school. A free rein may also be right at times, such as with advanced or highly mature students.

Theory X and Y

Another older model of leadership is Theory X and Theory Y by Mcgregor. According to this theory, a theory X leader thinks that the average worker, or in our case, student, dislikes work and does not have the self-control to get things done. Therefore, the leader must maintain a high degree of control. Theory Y leaders believe the opposite that people motivate and desire self-control. Thus, theory Y leaders allow more participation and autonomy for their workers.

The context should dictate the leadership style. However, most leaders and perhaps teachers often support Theory X when dealing with students. Self-motivation and discipline are rare traits to find in many students today. Another concern is that participative leadership is a slow process, as anyone who has lived in a democracy may be familiar with. There are specific time constraints in teaching that make it difficult to allow for the democratic process to play out in the classroom, even with willing and cooperative students.

Directive/Permissive Leadership Style

The final model in this post is the Directive/Permissive Leadership style. This style involves four types of leadership, as explained below.

• Directive Autocrat-High control in decision making and directing people. Applicable when there is little time for discussion, such as during a crisis or emergency. Also useful when the expertise of the followers is low.
• Permissive autocrat-High control of decision-making but low power in directing the people. The leader makes the decision, but the workers decide how to get it done. Similar to the free rein style.
• Directive democrat-Decision making involves participation, but the leader highly controls the execution. Useful when the followers have valuable expertise or opinions to strengthen decision making, but strong leadership is needed to make it happen.
• Permissive democrat-Decision making involves participation, and followers are allowed the freedom to determine how to implement the decisions.

Moving to the classroom again, each of the styles has a place as determined by the context. The maturity of the students plays a vital role in trying to decide which type to choose. As maturity increases, participation in decision-making and execution should be able to increase as well. As responsibility is placed on the students, it lessons the management of the teacher of the classroom. As such, looking for ways to switch to a more democratic leadership style empowers students and lowers the burden on the teacher. However, the students must be ready for the freedom unless chaos erupts, and this requires the teacher to switch styles as the students mature gradually.

Conclusion

There is no such thing as the “best” leadership style. A classroom leader must be able to adjust to whatever situation they are facing. At times, freedom is appropriate, but there is also a time when even a dictator is needed to maintain stability. In general, the less directing a teacher has to do, the less of a burden on them and also on the students who may have to suffer at times from a lack of autonomy that they may desire.

Leadership and management are two skills teachers need as they work with students. We are now going to try and understand the similarities and differences between leading and managing, along with trying to understand the role of followers are.

Leadership Defined

Leadership is defined in a variety of ways. One way of looking at leadership is to see it as an interpersonal influence. In other words, great leaderships have great relationships with people. This focus on relationships means that it is common for leaders to focus on maintaining group needs in their position of leadership. This means supporting others with the skills they need, materials, and or supporting group norms of behavior. Often, a person will lose a leadership position when they are no longer able to meet group needs.

Leadership also involves making sure things get done and a vision for the followers to follow. In other words, a leader knows where they want to go and can find ways to inspire others to follow.

This naturally applies to a teacher as well. A classroom teacher, like a teacher, must be able to connect with students and support students to have academic success. This can involve providing a stable learning environment, expertise, ad social support for students. If any of these things are considered missing by the students, the students may reject the teacher’s leadership. A teacher also must make stuff happen in the classroom while inspiring students to enjoy the journey of learning.

Leader, Manager or both

managers and leaders have overlapping yet different functions and origins. Leaders often emerge while managers are appointed. Leaders are focused on influence, while managers are focused on control. This is because a manager’s power comes from the organization, while a leader’s power comes from their expertise, charisma, etc.

Perhaps it is clear that managers and leaders have a lot in common. Successful managers often have leadership ability, while successful leaders show some management ability. A teacher is appointed as a manager by the school but needs to be seen as a leader by the students. This requires the ability to both managed and lead.

Followers

Followers are generally the people who are not seen as having a leadership or management position. A follower’s primary role is to accept or reject leadership. Accepting is good news, but rejection may lead to the followers picking their own leader.

When dealing with followers, a leader must look at the group’s general characteristics because different types of people need different types of leadership. Some followers need authoritarian leadership, which is strong direct leadership. This type of individual needs a leader who tells them what to do, and there is little need for a large amount of choice. Followers who need authoritarian leadership also tend to have less self-confidence and require more motivation to have success.

The other extreme in terms of followers are followers who want autonomous leadership, which means they want to participate in decision-making. These followers are often more confident and require support from leadership. Rigidness in leading does not usually work with this group of people.

In the classroom, a teacher needs to determine what style of leadership their students need. In addition, the style may not always be the same with the same students. In some situations, the students may need authoritarian leadership while requiring autonomy in another situation. Furthermore, as the students mature over the school year, this may mean an adjustment in the leadership style.

It is also vital to avoid condemning any particular leadership style as inferior because the situation determines how to lead. Authoritarian styles are viewed negatively at times. However, what’s terrible is always using the same style no matter the situation. A leader needs to provide his followers with what they need, whether authoritarian or autonomous.

Conclusion

A teacher must possess skills in leadership and management to support and help students. However, these skills must also be flexible because different students have different needs at various times from their teacher. As such, few would say that excellent teaching is something that is easy to do.

Teachers need to balance the joy of group work with the need for academic performance. This post will explain what group effectiveness is and what the teacher can do to make sure students produce while working in groups.

Group Effectiveness

Group effectiveness can be measured through the quantity/quality of the group’s output, the satisfaction of the individual group members, and the potential for future cooperation. If a group can produce a large amount of work, high-quality work, or the ideal, which is a huge quantity of high-quality work, this is a highly effective group. The challenge in the classroom may be to find ways to measure the amount and quality of a group’s work.

A hard-working group can still be a dysfunctional one if the members struggle to tolerate each other. Therefore, needs satisfaction is another way to measure a group’s effectiveness, especially in situations where production was not the primary purpose of the group.

Potential future cooperation is yet another way to measure the effectiveness of a group. If people look forward to working together again, it is reasonable to assume that the performance will be strong and the satisfaction of the needs met. As such, determining people’s willingness to work together in the future is a vital insight into effectiveness. However, with students who are not under the same performance pressures as adults, future cooperation may mean future socializing and off-task behavior.

Other determinates of group effectiveness include effort, knowledge/skill, and strategies for performance. Students who are willing to work hard are often students who will help groups be more effective in terms of the quantity/quality of the output. Naturally, the more knowledgeable a student is, the increased effectiveness of the group as these skills the student possesses help to achieve goals. Performance strategies are essentially specific skills that are used to enhance the efficiency of the group.

Teachers and Group Effectiveness

There are several things that teachers can do to improve the effectiveness of groups working in the classroom. Withitness is an idea in which the teacher is always aware of what is happening in the classroom. It is similar to having “eyes in the back of one’s head.” When students know that the teacher knows what is going on, they are more likely to be on-task and contributing.

Setting general rules is another beneficial way to improve group effectiveness. Basic protocols like how to act in a group, the roles of group members, how to handle off-task behavior or conflicts, etc., can all be used to give the students clues about how to proceed. In addition, directions for completing the assignment are also essential, and it may seem obvious that this is needed. However, many teachers forget to provide this kind of crucial information.

Despite having general rules, each group must establish its own set of norms. These can be such things as who is the leader and the quality or quantity of work the group wants to produce. It often takes time for these norms to work themselves out. Therefore, complex projects need more time for these norms to be developed than more straightforward projects.

Encouraging cohesiveness is another useful tool. This means making sure the group frequently meets, is not too big, has clear goals, etc. Are all beneficial in improving effectiveness. When students have relationships with one another and have a clear sense of purpose, good things can happen.

Conclusion

Maintaining productivity and effectiveness in groups can be challenging for many teachers. However, understanding some of the fundamental underlying factors for encouraging effectiveness can help teachers know where to look when there is a problem.

Groups are an essential part of the classroom and learning experience of students. As teachers, we often form groups and or even disband them. In this post, we will look at the different types of groups that develop in a class and the reasons students join groups.

Types of Groups

The types of groups that develop organizationally can be defined in terms of two dimensions: formal vs. informal and permanent versus temporary. This means that there are four potential types of groups which are listed below.

• Formal and permanent
• Formal and temporary
• Informal and permanent
• Informal and temporary

Formal groups are usually set up by the teacher, while informal groups develop naturally due to student preference. How long a group lasts often depends on the purpose of the group. We will now go through each of these four group types in detail.

Formal & Permanent 

Formal and permanent groups are called a command or functional groups. The teacher develops this type of group to complete a specific long-term task. Examples of this would include assignments, projects, or even teams for sports competitions.

Formal & Temporary

Formal and temporary groups have the same criteria as formal and permanent groups. The main difference is how long the group is together. Therefore, the difference between the first two groups is how long the group will exist. In addition, what is considered permanent or temporary will vary from teacher to teacher and from student to student.

Informal & Permanent

Informal and permanent groups are also called friendship groups. The purpose of this type of group is for socializing and generally having a good time. This type of group will develop naturally without the influence of the teacher. However, sometimes this type of group’s interest can clash with the teacher’s goals in the classroom when socializing becomes too important.

Informal & Temporary

Informal and temporary groups are also called interest groups. These groups often last as long as the members have a similar interest—for example, a book club or a study group.

Reasons for Group Membership

There are several reasons why people join groups. The teacher creates formal groups, but for informal groups, there are distinct reasons.

Socializing is the main reason for group membership. Students are social creatures like everyone, and they enjoy each other and even the teacher at times. Therefore, students will join groups just to appreciate being around each other.

As mentioned previously, students will join groups to enjoy various shared interests. Some activities require more than one person (i.e., basketball), which provides an opportunity for an informal group to develop to pursue this shared interest.

Sometimes groups are joined because of proximity. Students who may not become members of the same group may do so because of physical proximity. For example, students from foreign countries may socialize together because they share the same foreign experience that local students do not.

Lastly, protection is another driving factor for joining groups. The perils of high school and even college can be filled with experiences of bullying and taunting. Nothing helps to quell such negative experiences, such as having a group of friends who will protect you from such treatment. Of course, some students join groups not so much for protection as for the opportunity to torment other students.

Conclusion

Group types are just ways for teachers to be aware of another unique dynamic of students’ social experience. Some groups are top-down while others are bottom-up. In addition, the motivation behind joining a group can vary from student to student. Either way, understanding this can help teachers to help students.

Performance appraisals are commonly associated with a supervisor assessing the performance of a subordinate. However, performance appraisals can also be used in the classroom to provide students with feedback about their behavior and academic progress. We will look at the uses and problems of performance appraisals in the classroom as well as how to avoid common mistakes.

Uses of Performance Appraisals

Performance appraisals can be used to give students feedback about their progress in terms of behavior or academics. In addition, Appraisals can provide students with insights into their strengths and weaknesses. For example, a student might be solid academically, but the teacher may notice they struggle with interacting with others.

Appraisals can also be useful when determining rewards among students. Depending on the employed system, this can be one of many ways to assess honor and praise for students. Lastly, appraisals can help teachers be aware of what they need to do to help students academically or in other areas that need development.

Problems with Appraisals

There are several problems with appraisals. These problems may not all apply to the classroom but are common when performance appraisals are conducted in other settings such as business.

First, there can be problems with the instrument. The tool used to perform the assessment must be assessed for validity and reliability. Another common concern is something called the central tendency error. This happens when a teacher gives everybody a score in the middle and thus makes all students average. This is an example of a human error rather than a problem with the instrument itself. Teachers must remind themselves to recognize both excellent and abysmal performance.

An equally dangerous trap teachers may fall into is strictness or leniency error. This happens when a teacher is too mean or too nice, which can skew scores. Being too strict hurts excellent students while being too lenient rewards poor-performing students.

The halo effect involves giving good or bad scores in one component of an appraisal and continuing this scoring in another element. For example, if a student has excellent leadership skills and is marked highly for this. The teacher may also mark this same student as excellent in other categories when there is no evidence to support this.

The final two problems are recency error and personal bias. Recency error involves only remember the latest behavior of the student to the exclusion of older actions. Suppose the student is having a good day this beneficial. However, if a student has struggled recently for whatever reason (personal, health, etc.) and the teacher does not think of the overall trend, this can be detrimental.

Personal biases happen when a teacher does not get along with a student, which affects the scores the student earns in an appraisal. It is often not popular to speak about this, but all people have varying capacities to tolerate each other’s behavior and attitudes, and sometimes the clash of personalities rather than performance can influence how teachers assess a student.

Overcoming the Problems

Outside of validity and reliability, the majority of the problems with performance appraisals involve the human aspect. This means that the appraisers need to be aware of the mistakes they could make and make a conscious effort not to make these common errors as they can have a negative effect on students.

This means that teachers need to be aware of these pitfalls so that they do not make them. As such, necessary awareness is required to ensure that appraisals are fair and accurately measure the teacher’s perception of a student’s performance.

Conclusion

Everything that a teacher does has to be weighed in terms of pros and cons. Performance appraisals are another tool that a teacher can use in their classroom to provide feedback and support for students. However, a teacher must be aware of the drawbacks to using such a tool, which does not mean that the device should not be used even if it has some disadvantages.

Equity theory essential tries to explain how people view their effort versus what they received in return for their effort. A more straightforward way to state this is that people monitor whether they think their situation is “fair.” Students, especially children, are positively obsessed with fairness

In equity theory, inputs are anything that person believes they are contributing to further the organization. It could be experience, performance, education, time, etc. For children, many of the examples listed so far may not be applicable. For students, inputs might be appropriate behavior, completing assignments, staying on task, etc.

Inputs & Outputs

Outputs in equity theory can involve pay, working conditions, job status, achievement, etc. Outcomes are essentially what an individual thinks they are getting back from the organization in return for the inputs. Outcomes for children can be such things as special privileges, good grades, praise, etc.

According to equity theory, what happens over time is that people compare the inputs to the outputs over time to see if they are balanced and fair. If they are people are satisfied, if not there could be problems. How we decide what is reasonable is by comparing our input to output ratio with someone else’s. These people are called referent others.

Returning to the classroom, children determine what is fair not so much by some external standard but by how they are treated when looking at how others are treated. If one student does not have to do homework and another does, the student who has to complete the task can only say it’s not fair compared to the student who did not get the assignment. If both were required to do homework, they would need a different argument than comparing themselves to each other.

The Results of Comparing

Three situations can result from the comparison of one’s self to others according to equity theory. When people believe the input to output is fair, it is called a state of equity. When a person is convinced that their inputs are less than the outputs when comparing, this is called over-reward equity. When the inputs are more than the outputs, this is an example of under-reward equity.

If people feel over-rewarded, they seldom complain or show concern for this. This is similar to what can be seen in children who are favored in one way or another. An exception to this may be if the over-rewarding causes social tension. Then some people and many children may sacrifice the excess reward to regain harmony and group acceptance.

In terms of under-reward, people tend to become frustrated and focused on the injustice of their situation. One practical solution is a passive-aggressive one and involves reducing the inputs. If working long hours is not being rewarded, a person can reduce their hours to the minimum. By doing this, they can gain time that was not reaping any additional salary or praise. Children will also work less if they are not convinced it will make a difference in their academic performance.

However, one common problem people had when they compared themselves to others is that they tend to overrate their performance and underrate their peers’ performance. This means that a large amount of frustration people have is their misperception of the situation. Therefore, it may not always be fair to address another person’s or student’s sense of unfairness.

Points for the Classroom

There are many ways a teacher can be fair or unfair. However, two common problems are marking assignments and classroom management. If these two teaching duties are not done in a fair and balanced way, there could be push-back from the students in terms of their views of equity.

Teachers have to be careful about how they approach marking or grading. Tests that are considered too hard can lead to problems of under-reward. Subjective assignments, such as essays that need grading, require tools such as rubrics to increase the consistency of the marks.

Policies must also be consistently enforced. If there is a penalty for late assignments, it must be applied every time and not based on one’s emotions or situation. It only takes one exception to encourage everyone to demand the same. Otherwise, it is not fair. When it is necessary to discipline students, the penalty must fit the crime regardless of who was involved. In general, when exceptions are made, it can lead to problems, and when inconsistency reigns supreme, it can lead to the same frustration as found in under-reward.

Conclusion

Being fair is an expectation of teaching but is not always easy. Students, like employees, want to work in an environment that is considered fair. Therefore, teachers need to be aware of the consequences of unfairness and how it may manifest itself in the classroom.

Fredrick Herzberg developed his theory on motivation based on the work of Maslow. Traditionally, Herzberg’s approach has been applied in the world of business and management. In this post, we will explain Herzberg’s theory and show applications of it in the classroom.

Motivator-Hygiene Theory

Herzberg’s theory suggests that there are two sets of needs for individual workers: motivators and hygienes. Motivators can be a person’s sense of achievement through performing various functions that are a part of their job. People often need to grow as a function of their career, and this is what motivates them. Hygienes are things people want to avoid and are associated with pain in one way or the other. For example, dealing with poor leadership is something most people want to avoid and is an example of a hygiene factor.

Additional examples of motivators can include recognition for hard work, which will often inspire people to continue working hard. In addition, anything that leads to the development of additional skills that are causing growth is often associated with motivators.

Additional examples of hygiene include such factors as pay, working conditions, and supervision. In other words, a challenging job with low pay will probably lack motivation because of the low salary. The same can apply to a great job with poor working conditions or terrible supervision. We all know people who left meaningful and engaging occupations because these hygiene factors caused too much dissatisfaction.

However, removing bad hygiene does not make a job great if the motivators are not there. In other words, hygiene and motivators must be positive, but they are not enough in many situations.

In the Classroom

For the teacher, they need to be aware of motivators and hygienes as the deal with their students. Examples of things that motivate students are praise, engaging classwork, making the curriculum relevant, and autonomy. Younger children are often more motivated with less effort when compared to older such as teenagers.

In terms of hygiene factors, classroom management is perhaps one of the most significant factors. If a teacher cannot maintain order in a just and reasonable way, even highly motivated students will quickly turn off to learning. For older students and college, the marking of assignments can also become demotivating if the teacher is not clear in their expectations and communication. Lastly, the teacher needs to show an example of expertise and organization as students have much higher standards for their teacher than they often have for themselves.

Conclusion

Herzberg’s theory can be another way of viewing classroom management. Teachers often deal with the same problems as managers, just with individuals who are not adults. As such, some of Herzberg’s ideas may be useful, but some may not be, but looking for additional insights into managing students is never a bad idea.

David Mclelland developed Learned Needs Theory. In his research, Mclelland states that people have three primary needs: need for achievement, need for affiliation, and a need for power. These three forms of needs are learned in childhood.

Need for Achievement

The need for achievement is how strongly a person wants to have success at completing a task. Some students have a strong desire for achievement, and this is reflected in their grades. For them, the grades they earn are a measure of their high achievement. However, not all students have a strong need for achievement, and this can also be seen in their grades in some other way, such as lack of participation.

McClelland explains the three main traits of high achieving people. One, high-achieving people feel a personal responsibility when they are expected to do something. When a student with high achievement needs is given a task, they are willing to accept the success or failure of the task. It becomes their mission.

Two, high achievement people like to take on projects that have a moderate success rate. In other words, high achievement individuals hate something that is too easy but equally lose motivation for suicide tasks that have a low success rate. Instead, they want to see a return for hard work. For students, a teacher needs to make sure tasks are within the zone of proximal development to be assured that the task is not too easy but preferably within reach of the student with some assistance.

High achievers also have a desire for feedback. This is because they want to know if they have achieved success. The feedback can be positive or negative, but it needs to be there. For students, this means providing clear information to the high achieving student in terms of their progress on assignments and the course overall.

If high achievers are not allowed to achieve, it can disrupt behavior and students who lack motivation. Therefore, when dealing with classroom management issues, a teacher should consider if they are meeting their high achievers’ achievement needs.

Need For Affiliation

The need for affiliation is a need to have positive social relationships with other people. These are your classic extroverts who love the company of others. Everyone has some need for affiliation, but for many, this is a high need.

For people who need affiliation, the task is not essential to them. Instead, people who need affiliation respond to situations in which people depend on them. For students, this can be situations such as group projects and or team sports. Others need them, and this is when the outgoing student will achieve.

Nothing can cripple high affiliated people than isolation. Make a student who needs relationship work alone will lead to potential behavioral problems. In addition, students who have a low need for affiliation will equally cause issues if they are always expected to socialize and be a part of the group.

Need for Power

The need for power is a need to control, which means to influence other people. A person with this need is often talkative, arguing, and giving orders. Many leaders need power.

McClelland indicates two types of power, and these are personal power and social power. Personal power is a power to control others and is often political with a secret agenda. Social power is also seeking to influence others but to achieve the goals of the group or organization.

Students can seek one or both forms of power in different situations. For example, students who want to disrupt the class and distract students from learning are trying to flex their personal power skills. Students trying to get their peers to complete group projects and class assignments are using their social power skills. The students who are mostly influenced by either of these forms of power may not have a strong need for power.

To deal with students who need power, teachers need to provide outlets for this need. A student who is pushing personal power needs to find goals that align with the classroom. When the dissonance between what they want and what the teacher wants is removed, the student can now use their need for power for social rather than personal reasons.

Conclusion

Everyone has slightly different needs. For teachers, it is crucial always to identify what motivates their students. When this is done, the teacher can challenge the needs to enhance learning.

Behavioral self-management is a tool that requires the student to play a role in their actions and choices. This post will explain how this approach works. There are three steps to behavioral self-management…

1. Self-monitoring
2. Self-evaluation
3. Self-reinforcement

Also, several external factors need to be considered, as well.

Self-Monitoring

Self-monitoring involves having the student determine what the problem is in terms of their behavior. For example, a teacher may ask the student if being disruptive in class is problematic for the other students. Most students will agree to this, and thus this form of questioning allows the student to identify where the problem is in terms of their actions.

Once the student knows where the problem is, they can move to the second stage, which involves self-evaluation.

Self-Evaluation

Self-evaluation deals with the question of what the student should be doing. As the teacher, you would explain acceptable behavior in contrast to what the student does typically. For example, if the student is disruptive examples of non-disruptive behavior, communicate what the expected behavior is.

With this knowledge of what is acceptable, the student can now focus on implementing the desired behavior. The final step is called self-reinforcement.

Self-Reinforcement

Self-reinforcement is the final step in behavioral self-management. This step involves making sure that the new behavior is continuously practiced. For example, if a student stops being disruptive, self-reinforcement makes sure that the student does not return to being disruptive again. To be successful, the student must have control over what kind of reinforcement they get beyond verbal ones. For many teachers, this may not be attractive, but this idea of autonomy is a critical aspect of behavioral self-management.

However, several factors must be considered when attempting behavioral self-management. Some of these factors include circumstantial cues, the individual, behaviors, and consequences.

Additional Factors

Circumstantial cues are things in the environment that help or hinder changes in the behavior of the student. For example, a student might be disruptive because of who they sit next to in class. Merely moving the student can alleviate the problem. Another cue that can cause disruptive behavior is boredom. In such a situation, the student may need additional stimulation by assisting the teacher.

Different people have different ways to make sure they do not continue poor behavior. Some students may use self-talk, which involves using encouraging words that the student speaks to themselves to maintain positive behavior. An example of self-talk could be a student saying to themselves, “I can do this.”

Rehearsal is another strategy used by individual students. Rehearsal is the student visualizing in their mind the proper behavior. For example, the student may imagine what a quiet classroom looks like and try to produce this behavior in the real world. Lastly, symbolic coding involves envisioning the consequences of inappropriate behavior. For example, being removed from class and or having their parents called would be things most students would prefer to avoid.

All of the strategies mentioned above can be taught to the student by the teacher. The ones that are pick will vary based on the personality of the student and the behavior that the teacher wants to see changed.

Conclusion

One of the primary benefits of behavioral self-management is that it places the responsibility of change on the student. This form of empowerment can be beneficial for many students who think they have little control over their own lives. However, everyone will not respond positively to this style of management. For example, this approach may be challenging to use with small children who lack self-control in general. Also, some students are so used to coercion that they will not respond to the benefit of participation in choosing how to act. This is why having several different tools available and the flexibility to use them is the best strategy for a teacher.

Behavior modification is focused on bringing about permanent change in a student’s behavior that is observable. The difference in behavior must be what the teacher desires. This involves reinforcement, which is consistent with operant conditioning. For many, this is almost a form of manipulation. Yet, behavior modification is highly effective if it is used appropriately.

The steps explained below are available in most classroom management textbooks and, as such, are not original. The point here is to provide a brief explanation of how these ideas work to save someone the time of reading an entire chapter on this in a textbook. For a typical behavior modification program, you will have the following steps.

1. Establish the criteria
2. Complete a performance check
3. Develop specific behavioral goals
4. Evaluate results
5. Praise student base on actual performance

Establishing the Criteria

A teacher needs to first determine what they mean by acceptable behavior from their students. This must also be communicated so that the students can understand, which necessitates the need for simplicity. The criteria are generally vague, and it is refined at step three when you make specific behavioral goals. Examples of behavioral criteria can include such things as being respectful, submitting work on time, etc. Again, how to do this is specified later.

Performance Check

Once a criterion has been established, the next step is to see how well the students are currently doing this. You want to identify where there is serious trouble and focus on developing specific behavioral goals for these problem areas. For example, if students are habitual yelling at each other, this will probably be seen as being disrespectful. AS such, the teacher may want to focus on this particular problem when moving to step 3.

Specific Behavioral Goals

Specific behavioral goals are precisely what individual students need to do to achieve the ideas in the behavioral criteria. Technically, these goals need to be set up for each student individual because no two students have the same performance issues. However, this may not be possible in a large class. Therefore, general rather than specific behavioral goals may have to work. An exception can be made for incredibly challenging students who are disrupting the learning experience.

Goals at this level need to be realistic and measurable. For example, to reduce yelling in the classroom, the teacher might make the following goal.

Upon entering the classroom, the student will never yell at anyone.

The example above contains a condition for entering the classroom. In other words, it doesn’t matter if the student yells outside in this example. Next, the goal states specifically that the student will not yell at anyone. This is the behavior that the teacher is trying to modify. Lastly, the negation never is used as a proficiency. In other words, yelling is not allowed to happen at any time. Expressing this implies perfection in terms of the consistency of the behavior.

Evaluation

Once the goals are set, the student(s) are evaluated over time to see how well they perform. When mistakes are made, students are reminded of the expectations. If it is necessary, disciplinary actions may be used. Although this is generally saved for step 5

Praise and Feedback

Praise and feedback are given once the evaluation is complete. However, when working with children, the last two steps often happen simultaneously in an iterative manner. Children shouldn’t wait too long to be provided with feedback and or discipline as bad habits set in rather quickly.

The goal during this entire process is to shape behavior incrementally over time. The success that you are looking for will not happen immediately. In other words, returning to our example, a student will not stop yelling immediately when the goals are set. Instead, what you want to see is a steady decline in behavior over time. The goal is steady progress rather than instant perfection. This requires patience on the part of the teacher as the student goes through this process.

Conclusion

Behavior modification is one of many tools that a teacher can use to help students. The purpose is to encourage certain behaviors and discourage others. As such, the process mentioned here can improve both teachers’ and students’ classroom experiences. Managing student behavior is a part of the classroom. Students are always trying to test and push the limits of what is acceptable behavior. In response to this, many teachers choose to have some system of reinforcing acceptable behavior. This post talks about several different methods of reinforcement.

Managing student behavior is a part of the classroom. Students are always trying to test and push the limits of what is acceptable behavior. In response to this, many teachers choose to have some system of reinforcing acceptable behavior. This post talks about several different methods of reinforcement.

Systems of Reinforcement

Continuous reinforcement happens every time the desired behavior occurs. For example, if students receive a prize every time they come into the classroom quietly, the award must always be given. Of course, this can quickly become expensive or infeasible for other reasons.

The next three types of reinforcement are all considered to be partial reinforcement. By partial, it means that the students are not reinforced every time they produce the desired behavior. Instead, they are reinforced at various intervals.

Fixed interval reinforcement is a reward to the students, not every single time they performed the desired behavior but at fixed intervals of time. For example, if a teacher promises to give the students extra free time every Friday for good behavior.

One problem with fixed interval s that it is set in nature. Students know when the reward is coming and will adjust their behavior to the nearest of the reward. When the reward is far away, students misbehave, but they behave as the reward comes closer. This could be stressful for some teachers.

A fixed ratio involves giving the reinforcement after the students have performed the desired behavior a certain number of times. For example, if a teacher decides to reward his students every tenth time, they quietly come from lunch. There is no time measurement to this, but it is only based on performance. Some days the students will earn points some days, they will not.

In addition, as students get closer to earning the reward, they become more motivated to monitor their behavior. However, the students may get so good at reaching the reward that it might be necessary to make the desired behavior hard to produce.

Variable ratio reinforcement is the hardest to explain. The word here is ratio, which is a comparison of two amounts. For example, if the number of boys to girls in a classroom is 2 to 1 this means for every two boys, there is 1 girl. It doesn’t matter how many students there are as long as the 2:1 ratio is respect.

Therefore, for a teacher who employs a variable-ratio, the students have to perform the behavior a certain number of times. However, the teacher can now change the number of times the students must perform the behavior to achieve the rewards as long as they respect the ratio. For example, a teacher may decide that the students must come in quietly from lunch with a ratio of 10:1 to receive the reward. The students come in quietly five times the first time and get the reward a little early. The second time the students have to go in quietly 15 times or a little later to earn the reward. If we do the math, we can see the students came in a total of 20 times quietly and receive two rewards (20:2), which respects our 10:1 ratio.

This style of reward is highly successful with adults. However, children who are often weaker at math may see this system as unpredictable and discouraging. Therefore, this particular reward system may not work with children.

Conclusion

The purpose was not to try and indicate which of these systems of reward is the best. There are too many variables with each classroom and teacher to single out the best approach. Instead, a teacher should experiment with these different systems and see which one may work for them.

Attitudes are one of the challenges teachers have to wrestle within the classroom. This post will provide a more in-depth understanding of what an attitude is and the traits of attitudes.

Attitude

A student’s attitude is their tendency to respond a certain way towards something. Naturally, the student’s response can be on a continuum of positive to negative or good to bad. When a teacher says that a student has a bad attitude, they mean that the student did not respond positively to something they were asked to do. The opposite is also true; a student with a good attitude is likely someone who has a cooperative spirit in terms of complying with what they are asked to do by the teacher.

It is essential to mention that attitude is considered a psychological construct. This means you can see the consequences of the attitude but not the attitude itself. In other words, the behavior is observed to determine the attitude. For example, a child who refuses to follow orders provides evidence that they have a bad attitude.

Components of Attitude

There are three main components of an attitude, and they are cognitive, affective, and intentional. The cognitive aspect of an attitude refers to what beliefs a student has about a person or object. The affective component relates to the feelings a student has towards a person or object. Lastly, the intentional component address the intentions a person has towards a person or object.

Naturally, there is some overlap in these components. If a student has negative beliefs about something, it is probably that they have negative feelings as well.

Attitude Formation

Three common approaches attempt to explain how attitudes are formed. These three approaches are called the dispositional approach, situational approach, and social information processing approach.

The dispositional approach views attitudes as almost the same as a personality trait. Students are born to have a positive or negative outlook in different situations. In other words, if they are happy, they are happy, and if they are sad, they are sad. From a teaching perspective, it is a random chance whether a student will enjoy your class. This is not overly optimistic in terms of changing a student’s viewpoint.

The situational approach states that attitudes emerge depending on the context. For example, if students struggle to understand math, they may develop a negative attitude about math. However, the opposite is also true in that success will cause the development of a positive attitude. This view allows a teacher to try to find situations in which students can have success so that they can shape a positive attitude.

Lastly, the social information processing approach views that attitudes are caught from the people around us. For example, if a student with a neutral attitude is surrounded by students with negative attitudes, they also will develop a negative attitude. Students pick up on the information about various topics from the environment, which can largely shape their attitude towards something.

Intentions vs. Action

Generally, students will try to maintain consistency between their attitudes and actions. Failure to do this can lead to trying to justify inconsistent behavior through excuses. This happens when students do something they know is wrong and blame it on something else or someone. This disconnect between attitude and action is sometimes called cognitive dissonance.

Conclusion

Attitudes are part of life but how we respond is up to us. Whether a student has a positive or negative attitude, it is up to the teacher to find ways to work with this student. The ideas presented here are simply a stepping stone in this process.

In the world of business, management has often been described as achieving goals through people. This is highly similar to management in the classroom in which the teacher is trying to helping students achieve mastery of a skill and or a body of knowledge. With excellent management, students can achieve mastery and even beyond that. However, poor management can lead to poor performance of the students and perhaps limit their potential.

Management Responsibilities

Several responsibilities of classroom management include the following.

Mapping the big pictures-Teachers cannot only plan day to day. They must plan for several weeks and months in advance. No teacher can decide on a whim to have a field trip tomorrow. Such an activity must be thought and with permission sought weeks if not months in advance. This is crucial because people who struggle to plan will have a hard time leading a classroom as they do not know where they are going.

Supervising & controlling-Teachers must oversee the work of students, which is a supervisory function. In addition, if there are concerns with performance or behavior, a teacher must have the courage to take corrective action, which is more of a controlling function. Disciplinary action does not always mean discipline. It could also mean providing additional support or reteaching difficult concepts.

Coordinating-A teacher is also like a conductor in that they have to find a way to get different types of people to work together to do something. This involves being familiar with the characteristics and traits of the various pieces involved and finding the best way to achieve the desired results.

Managing Skills 

There are also three primary skills that teachers need as borrowed from organizational management. These three skills are technical, people, and conceptual skills.

Technical skills are the manager’s knowledge, experience, and training. This means that a teacher must be knowledgeable in their field and know how to apply it in the real world in some practical way. For example, a chemistry teacher will naturally know chemistry. However, they must find ways to make this knowledge relevant and useful for high school students. Finding ways to make complex abstract knowledge practical may be one of the most significant challenges in teaching for an expert.

People skills is the ability to connect with people in a friendly manner and to motivate them. In addition, people skills involve finding ways to work through conflict as they arise. Friendly people are good at being friendly but often lack the strength to deal with conflict. On the other hand, confrontational people are often less friendly but can weather the fire of disagreement. A successful classroom manager is able t connect with people while still finding ways to deal with confrontations in a civil manner.

Conceptual skills are related to coordinating, as mentioned earlier. A classroom manager must plan and know where they are going before they get there. Students cannot follow a teacher who is lost. The teacher must know what they want and how to get there before leading the students to this destination.

Conclusion

Every teacher will have a different combination of these skills, and you must understand where your strengths and weaknesses are. This reflective process will help you to know better how to interact and motivate your students

Disagreements among students and even teachers is part of working at any institution. People have different perceptions and opinions of what they see and experience. With these differences often comes disagreements that can lead to serious problems.

This post will look at several broad categories in which conflicts can be resolved when dealing with conflicts in the classroom. The categories are as follows.

1. Avoiding
2. Accommodating
3. Forcing
4. Compromising
5. Problem-solving

Avoiding

The avoidance strategy involves ignoring the problem. The tension of trying to work out the difficulty is not worth the effort. The hope is  that the problem will somehow go away with any form of intervention. Often the problem becomes worst.

Teachers sometimes use avoidance in dealing with conflict. One common classroom management strategy is avoidance in which a teacher deliberately ignores poor behavior of a student to extinguish it.  Since the student is not getting any attention  from their poor behavior  they will often stop the  behavior.

Accommodating

Accommodating is focused on making everyone involved in the conflict happy. The focus is on relationships and not productivity. Many who employ this strategy believe that confrontation is destructive. Actual applications of this approach involve using humor, or some other tension breaking technique during a conflict. Again, the problem is never actually solved but rather some form of “happiness band-aid” is applied.

In the classroom, accommodation happens when teachers use humor to smooth over tense situations and when they make adjustments to goals to ameliorate students complaints. Generally, the first step in accommodation leads to more and more accommodating until the teacher is backed into a corner.

Another use of the term accommodating is the mandate in education under the catchphrase “meeting student needs”. Teachers are expected to accommodate as much as possible within guidelines given to them by the school. This leads to extraordinarily large amount of work and effort on the part of the teacher.

Forcing

Force involves simply making people do something through the power you have over them. It gets things done but can lead to long term relational problems. As people are forced the often lose motivation and new conflicts begin to arise.

Forcing is often a default strategy for teachers. After all, the teacher is t an authority over children. However, force is highly demotivating and should be avoided if possible. If students have no voice they quickly can become passive which is often in opposite of active learning in the classroom.

Compromising

Compromise involves trying to develop a win win situation for both parties. However, the reality is that often compromising can be the most frustrating. To totally avoid conflict means no fighting. TO be force means to have no power. However, compromise means that a person almost got what they wanted but not exactly, which can be more annoying.

Depending on the age a teacher is working with, compromising can be difficult to achieve. Younger children often lack the skills to see alternative solutions and half-way points of agreement. Compromising can also be viewed as accommodating by older kids which can lead to perceptions of the teacher’s weakness when conflict arises. Therefore, compromise is an excellent strategy when used with care.

Problem-Solving

Problem-solving is similar to compromising except that both parties are satisfied with the decision and the problem is actually solved, at least temporarily. This takes a great deal of trust and communication between the parties involved.

For this to work in  the classroom, a teacher must de-emphasize their position of authority in order to work with the students. This is counterintuitive for most in teachers and even for many students. It is also necessary to developing strong listening and communication skills to allow both parties to provide ways of dealing with the conflict. As with compromise, problem-solving is better reserved for older students.

Conclusion

Teachers need to know what their options are when it comes to addressing conflict. This post provided several ideas or ways for maneuvering disagreements and setbacks in  the classroom.

Deception is a common tool students use when trying to avoid discipline or some other uncomfortable situation with a teacher. However, there are some tips and indicators that you can be aware of to help you to determine if a student is lying to you. This post will share some ways to determine if a student may be lying. The tips are as follows

• Determine what is normal
• Examine how the play with their clothing
• Watch personal space
• Tone of voice
• Movement

Determine What is Normal

People are all individuals and thus unique. Therefore, determining deception first requires determining what is normal for the student. This involves some observation and getting to know the student. These are natural parts of teaching.

However, if you are in an administrative position and may not know the student that well it will be much harder to determine what is normal for the student sot that it can be compared to their behavior if you believe they are lying. One solution for this challenge is to first engage in small talk with the student so you can establish what appears to be natural behavior for the student.

Clothing Signs

One common  sign that someone is lying is that they begin to play with their clothing. This can include tugging on clothes, closing buttons, pulling down on sleeves, and or rubbing a spot. This all depends on what is considered normal for the individual.

Personal Space

When people pull away when talking it is often a sign of dishonesty. This can be done through such actions as shifting one’s chair, or leaning back. Other individuals will fold their arms across their chest. All these behaviors are subconscious was of trying to protect one’s self.

Voice

The voice provides several clues of deception. Often the rate or speed of the speaking slows down. Deceptive answers are often much longer and detailed than honest ones. Liars often show hesitations and pauses that are out of the ordinary for them.

A change in pitch is perhaps the strongest sigh of lying. Students will often speak with a much higher pitch one lying. This is perhaps do to the nervousness they are experiencing.

Movement

Liars have a habit of covering their mouth when speaking. Gestures also become more mute and closer to the bottom when a student is lying. Another common cue is gestures with the palms up rather than down when speaking. Additional signs include nervous tapping with the feet.

Conclusion

People lie for many reasons. Due to this, it is important that a teacher is able to determine the honesty of a student when necessary. The tips in this post provide some basic ways of potentially identifying who is being truthful.

It is common for undergraduate courses, particularly introductory courses, to have a large number of students. Some introductory courses can have as many as 150-300 students in them. Combine this with the fact that it is common for the people with the least amount of teaching experience whether a graduate assistant or new non-tenured professor. This leads to a question of how to handle teaching so many students at one time.

In this post, we will look at some common challenges to teaching a large at the tertiary level. In particular, we will  look at the following.

• Addressing student engagement
• Grading assignments
• Logistics

Student Engagement

Once a class reaches a certain size, it becomes difficult to engage students with discussion and one-on-one  interaction. This leaves a teacher with the most commonly used tool for university teaching, which is lecturing. However, most students find lecturing to be utterly boring and even some teachers find it boring.

Lecturing can be useful but it must be broken up into “chunks.” What this means is that perhaps you lecture for 8-10 minutes then have the students do something such as discuss a concept with their neighbor and then continue lecturing 8-10 minutes. The reason for 8-10 minutes is that is about how long a TV show runs until a commercial. This implies that 8-10 minutes is about how long someone can pay attention.

The during a break in the lecturing, students can teach a neighbor how/explain a concept to a neighbor, they can write a summary of what they just learned, or they can simply discuss what they learn. What happens during this time is up to the teacher but it should provide a way to continue to examine what is being learned without having to sit and only listen to the lecturer.

Grading Assignments

Grading assignments can be a nightmare in a large class. This is particularly true if the assessment has open-ended questions. The problem with open-ended questions is that they cannot be automated and mark by a computer.

If you must have open-ended questions that require humans to grade them here are some suggestions.

• If the assessment is formative or a stepping stone in a project selective marking may be an option.  Selective marking involves only grade some papers through sampling and then inferring that other students made the same mistakes. You can then reteach the common mistakes to the whole class while saving a large amount of time.
• Working with your teaching assistants you can have each assistant mark a section of an exam. This helps to spread the work around and prevent students from complaining about one TA who’s grading they dislike.
• Peer review is another form of formative feedback that can work in large classes.

As mentioned earlier, for assessments that involve one answer, such as in lower level math classes, there are many automated options that are probably already available at your school such as scan tron sheets or online examinations.

Cheating can also be a problem for examines. However, thorough preparation and developing an assignment that is based on what is taught can greatly reduce cheating. Randomizing the exams and seating can help as well. For plagiarism there are many resources available online

Logistics

Common logistical problem includes communication which can be through email or office hours. If a class has over 100 or even 200 students. The demands for personal help can quickly become overwhelming. This can be avoided by establishing clear lines of communication and how you will response.

Hopefully, there is some sort of way for you to communicate with all the students simultaneously such as through a forum or some other way. In this way, you can share the answer to a good question with everyone rather than individually several times.

Office hours can be adjusted by having them in groups rather than one-on-one. This allows the teacher to help several students at once rather than individually. Another idea is to have online office hours. Again you can meet several students at once but with the added convenience of not having to be in the same physical location.

Conclusion

Large classes are a lot of work and can be demanding for even experienced teachers. However, with some basic adjustments it is possible to shoulder this load with care.

The average teacher prefers small classes. However, there are times when the enrollment in a class that is usually big (however you define this) takes a dip in size and suddenly a class has become “small.” This can be harder to deal with than many people tend to believe. There are some aspects of the teaching and learning experience that need to be adjusted because the original approach is not user-friendly for the small class.

Another time when a person  often struggles with teaching small classes is if they never had the pleasure of experiencing a small class as a student. If your learning experience was a traditional large class lecture style and all of a sudden  you are teaching at a small liberal arts college there will need to be some adjustments too.

In this post, we will look at some pros and cons of teaching smaller classes at the tertiary level. In addition, we will look at some ways to address the challenges of teaching smaller classes for those who have not had this experience.

Pros

With a smaller class size there is an overall decrease in the amount of work that has to be done. This means few assignments to mark, less preparation of materials, etc. In addition, because the class is smaller it is not necessary to be as formal and structured with the class. In other words, there is no need to have routines in place because there is little potential chaos that can ensue if everyone does what they want.

The teaching can also be more personalized. You can adjust content and address individual question much easier than when dealing with a larger class. You can even get to know the students in a much more informal manner that is not possible in a large lecturer hall.

Probably the biggest advantage  for a new teacher is the ability to make changes and adjustments during a semester. A bad teacher in a large class leads to a large problem. However, a bad teacher in a small class is a small problem. If things are not working, it is easier to change things in a small group. The analogy that I like to make is that it is easier to do an u-turn on a bike instead of in a bus. For new teachers who do not quite know how to teach, a smaller class can help them to develop their skills for larger classes

Cons

There are some challenges with small classes especially for people with a large class experience. One thing you will notice when teaching a large class is a lost of energy. If you are used to lecturing to 80 students and suddenly are teaching 12 it can seem as if that learning spark is gone.

The lost of energy can contribute to a lost of discipline. The informal nature of small classes can lead to students having a sense seriousness about the course. In larger classes there is a sense of “sink or swim”.  This may not be the most positive mindset but it helps people to take the learning experience seriously. In smaller classes this can sometimes be lost.

Attendance is another problem. In a large class having several absences is not a big deal. However, if your class is small, several absences is almost like a plague that wipes out a village. You can still teach but nobody is there or the key people who participate in the discussion are not there or there is no one to listen to their comments. This can lead to pressure to cancel class which causes even more problems.

Tips

There are several things that a teacher can do to have success with smaller class sizes. One suggestion is to adjust your teaching style. Lecturing is great for large classes in which content delivery is key. However, in  smaller class a more interact, discussion-like approach can be taken. This helps to bring energy back to the classroom as well as engage the students.

Sometimes, if this is possible, changing from a large room to a smaller one can help to bring back the energy that is lost when a class is smaller. Many times the academic office will put class in a certain classroom regardless of size. This normally no longer a problem with all the advances in scheduling and registration software. However, if you are teaching 10 students in an auditorium perhaps it is possible to find a smaller more intimate location.

Another way to deal with smaller classes is through increasing participation. This is often not practical in a large class. However, interaction can be useful in increasing the engagement.

Conclusion

The size of the class is not as important as the ability of the teacher to adjust to it in order to help students to learn. Small classes need a slightly different approach  than traditional large classes at university. With a few minor adjustments, a teacher can still find ways to help students even if the class is not quite the size everyone was expecting

Classroom management is different at the university level when compared to K-12. Often the problem is not behavioral in nature (with the exception of cell phones). Rather a lot of the classroom management problems at a university are academically related. In the classroom, the problem is often inattentiveness or idleness. In general, the challenge is completing assignments and being prepared for assessments.

Clear Syllabus

Making sure the syllabus is clear is critical for better performance of students. The syllabus includes the calendar, assignment requirements, rules, etc. When these are laid out in advance expectations are set the students strives to reach.

If the syllabus is unclear it normally means the expectations are unclear and even that the teaching is unclear. Most universities have a standard format for their syllabuses but it is still the teacher responsibility to explain clearly the expectations

Stick to the Syllabus

When the course has begun the commitments and expectations stipulated in the syllabus should be fully committed to. It is better to think of the syllabus as a binding contract between two parties. Once it is distributed and discuss there is nothing left to negotiate.

Related to this is the need to actually enforce rules. If there is a late policy it must be enforced otherwise students will think that you are not serious and the students will push for more concession. This can quickly snowball into chaos. If you actually have a rule against cellphones than it needs to be supported or you will develop students who have a disdain for people who don’t enforce their rules.

Provide Feedback

Perhaps one of the biggest problems in academia is a lack of feedback. Many professors may only have three assignments in a course per year. Given that there is almost always a mid-term and final in many courses and these are primarily summative assessment and not really for learn only. Many students have one assignment that extends beyond multiple choice.

This means that students need constant feedback. This allows for students to learn from their mistakes as well as provide them with motivation to complete their students. It is not always practical to mark every assignment. A shortcut would be to look at a sample of assignments and explain common errors to the class.

Mix Teaching Styles 

The last useful strategy will help to reduce daydreaming and listlessness. The most common teaching approach is usually lecture or direct-instruction. The problem is that if everyone does this it becomes really boring for any students. Therefore, lecturing is only bad if this is the only instructional model being used.

To maintain engagement means to used different teaching methodologies. While the syllabus should be structured and unchanging good teaching often has a flair and a slight degree of unpredictability that makes the classroom interesting

Conclusion

Teaching at any level is hard. However, classroom management at the university level can be challenging as this is not the most widely discussed topic. For, success a professor needs to commit to the syllabus while being flexible in their delivery of content.

One of the greatest challenges in teaching is classroom management. Students are always looking for ways and opportunities to test the limits of acceptable behavior. For teachers, these constant experimentation with the boundaries of how to act are extremely tiresome.

However, there are several strategies that teachers can use to limit poor behavior. Some of these ideas include the following.

• Setting routines
• Rehearsing transitions
• Anticipating behavior
• Non-Verbal cues

Set Routines

Establishing clear routines will help to regulate the behavior of students tremendously. When everybody knows their role and what to do there is usually less curiosity for a student to see what they can get away with.

Routine need to be explained, demonstrated, and practice in order for students to master them. Once a routine is established most students enjoy the predictability of having set actions that they need to perform and certain times of the day. While instruction should be varied and exciting routines provide a sense of stability and security to brilliant teaching.

Rehearse Transitions

A specific form of routine are transitions. Transitions are those moments in class when you have to move from one activity to another. An example would be going out to recess or coming in from recess, etc.

It is at moments like these that everyone is active. With so many moving parts and actions taking place, this is when the most breakdowns in behavior can often take place. Therefore the teacher needs to be extra diligent during the moments and make sure the routines are thoroughly drilled to avoid near absolute chaos.

Anticipation

Anticipating has to do with seeing what might happen before it actually happens. An analogy would be to an athlete who sees an opportunity to make a great play because of the actions of his opponent. A teacher must be able to read the class and be one-step ahead of the students.

A term related to this is called withitness which means to have a constant awareness of what is happening in the classroom. Or in other words to have eyes in the back of your head. As a teacher gets to know their students it becomes easier to predict their actions and to make adjustments beforehand. This can greatly reduce behavioral problems.

Non-Verbal Cues

Talk is cheap, especially with students. Non-verbal cues save the voice while getting students to do things. Every teacher should have several non-verbal commands that they use in their classroom. Examples may include ways to get the classes attention, to grant permission to go to the bathroom, to give permission get out of one’s seat, etc.

Most classes have a rule for students to raise their hand. However, non-verbal cues should not stop there. The more non-verbal cues the less talking. In addition, non-verbal cues reduce arguing because there were no words exchanged.

Conclusion

Behavior is a challenge but there are ways to overcome at least some of it. Teachers need to consider and employ ways to anticipate and deal with behavioral problems preferably before they become big problems.